Ismā‘īl ibn Ḥasan Jurjānī (circa 1042–circa 1136, also seen as Jorjānī and Gurjānī), known popularly as Hakim Jurjānī, was among the most famous physicians of 12th-century Iran. In the period between the Islamic conquest and the time of Jurjānī, almost all scientific books by Iranians were written in Arabic, including such famous works as al-Qānūn fī al-tibb (The canon of medicine) by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Jurjānī's medical encyclopedia, Zakhīrah-i Khvārazm’Shāhī (The treasure of Khvarazm’Shah) was the first major medical book in post-Islamic Iran written in ...

Juan Valverde was a Spanish medical anatomist who was born in Amusco, in the present-day province of Palencia, around 1525. He left for Italy around 1542, and later practiced medicine and taught in Rome. He was the great Spanish follower of the new anatomy established by Andreas Vesalius in 1543 with his work De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body). Vesalius was responsible for a new vision of the human body in the modern world. Valverde helped to spread this vision through the 16 editions in ...

This book is a compendium of medical works, printed in Basel in 1541 by the shop of Heinrich Petri (1508–79), also known by his Latinized name Henricus Petrus. It includes the Latin translation of the 30th chapter of the celebrated al-Taṣrīf li man ‘ajiza al-ta’līf (The arrangement of [medical knowledge] for one who is unable to compile [a manual for himself]) by the important Andalusian physician Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-‘Abbās al-Zahrawī. The book also contains a four-part work concerning the treatment of wounds and lesions by ...

Manuscript X 188 in the National Library of Sweden dates to around 1425–35 and contains two works by John Arderne (active 1307–70), an abridged version of De arte phisicali et de cirurgia (Of the physical arts and surgery) and Fistula in ano. Also included is a tract on obstetrics by another author, Muscio. De arte phisicali et de cirurgia is a textbook on medicine and surgery; Fistula in ano deals with rectal disorders. The manuscript is written in two long columns on a parchment roll that is 542 ...

The text of Taixi ren shen shuo gai (Outline of Western theories of the human body)was originally dictated by Deng Yuhan (Chinese name of the German Jesuit missionary Johann Schreck, also known as Johannes Terentius, 1576−1630), who translated and compiled the work. It was later edited by Bi Gongchen (died in 1644). Schreck was the earliest Western scientist to introduce Western works on physiology and anatomy into China. This is a manuscript edition in two juan, and was based on Theatrum anatomicum by Caspar Bauhin (1560−1624), a ...

Ren ti tu shuo (Illustrated explanations of the human body) is a work on anatomy by Western authors. It is the continuation of Taixi ren shen shuo gai (Outline of Western theories on the human body), originally translated jointly by Deng Yuhan (Chinese name of the German Jesuit missionary Johann Schreck, also known as Joannes Terentius, 1576−1630) and Long Huamin (Chinese name of Nicola Longobardo, 1565−1655). It was continued and completed by Luo Yagu (Chinese name of Jacobus Rho, 1593−1638). The work presented here is a one-juan ...

Traditional Thai medicine is a holistic discipline involving extensive use of indigenous herbal and massage-pressure treatments combined with aspects of spirituality and mental wellbeing. Having been influenced by Indian and Chinese concepts of healing, traditional Thai medicine understands disease not as a physical matter alone, but also as an imbalance of the patient with his or her social and spiritual world. Thai medical manuscripts written during the 19th century give a broad overview of different methods of treatment and prevention, of the understanding and knowledge of the human body, of ...

Das Buch der Natur (Book of nature) is a Medieval Latin compendium of science that was edited and translated into German in the 14th century by Konrad von Megenberg, a German scholar and writer who was probably born at Mainberg (Megenberg), near Schweinfurt, Bavaria, in 1309, and died at Ratisbon (Regensburg) in 1374. He studied at Erfurt and then at the University of Paris, where he taught philosophy and theology from 1334 to 1342. In 1342 he moved to Ratisbon, where he was a parish priest and a preacher. Later ...

These drawings of the human leg are by the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), whose studies of anatomy are recorded by his earliest biographers, Vasari (1550) and Condivi (1553). Michelangelo reportedly first dissected a cadaver in Florence around 1495, after he had been commissioned to sculpt a crucifix of wood for the church of Santo Spirito. The prior of the church gave him rooms in which he could, by dissection, learn how to render convincingly the muscles of the dying Christ. His last witnessed dissection occurred in Rome in 1548. Such ...

These woodcut anatomical sheets of male and female figures, published in Germany in 1573, reflect the state of anatomical knowledge at that time. The explanatory texts on each sheet are in Latin, with some names of anatomical parts also given in Greek. The sheets use movable flaps that can be raised to show cut-aways of the viscera attached beneath. The sheets have accessory figures that depict various parts of the body, with corresponding explanatory texts.

“The Man of Commerce” is a detailed map that conflates human anatomy with the American transportation system. Published in 1889 by the Land & River Improvement Company of Superior, Wisconsin, the map promotes Superior as a transportation hub and shows the routes of 29 railroads across the United States. The outline map of North America is superimposed by a cutaway diagram of the human body. The map’s metaphor makes West Superior “the center of cardiac or heart circulation.” The railways become major arteries. New York is “the umbilicus through which ...

The Greek physician Galen (Jālīnūs in Arabic, circa 131–201) was one of the greatest medical writers in classical times, and one of the most prolific. He was born in Pergamon, in present-day Turkey, and spent much of his life in Rome, where he promoted the ideas of Hippocrates. He emphasized dissection (of apes and pigs), clinical observation, and thorough examination of patient and symptoms. Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-ʻIbādī (circa 809–73), a renowned translator of Greek medical texts, translated Galen's major work, On Anatomical Procedures, from Greek into ...

The Persian physician Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad ibn Ilyās, who flourished around 1384, came from a family of physicians and other intellectuals living in the city of Shiraz in present-day Iran. Tashrīḥ-i badan-i insān (The anatomy of the human body), usually known as Tashrīḥ-i Manṣūrī (Manṣūr’s anatomy), is his best-known work. It contains the earliest surviving Islamic anatomical illustrations of the whole human body. They include full-page figures, drawn in pen using various colors of ink. The treatise consists of an introduction followed by chapters on the bones, nerves, muscles ...